A new helmsman at the Lagos-based pan-African culture institute, CBAAC (acronym for Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization) desires to make the most of building blocks of ideas purchased by his predecessors. The thirty-year old organization was established to function as a repository of ideas and resources which accumulated during the Second World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture, FESTAC, in 1977.

Professor Tunde Babawale, the new director at CBAAC is on secondment from Lagos University 's department of political science.

Judging from his itineraries, it seems likely that Babawale's time at the Centre would especially strengthen CBAAC's international profile and extend the frontier~ of its core territory in culture and the arts into the humanities and the political sciences.

At the University of Lagos where he had also been active in university administration, principally as head of an intellectual contact committee implementing the institution's visions and missions, and as secretary of an arm of the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities, Babawale instructed in political analysis, comparative politics and the methodology of comparative politics, the politics of development and underdevelopment, the organization of government in the application of research methods. He has published and theorized on the practice of Marxism, revolution and the society and on the state and its economy especially in the context of the African world.

In the 1990s when Nigeria struggled to end military rule and thoughts on development in relation to the military in politics were topical, Babawale was a prolific writer in the intellectual columns of the Nigerian press.

CBAAC had not always been a well-funded entity and its position as a hub for research and public outreach for culture has only recently improved. Until the administration previous to Babawale's appointment, the institute had simply remained in a snooze position. But not for lack of adequate manpower resource. Its high-culture internal personnel notwithstanding and a once highly considered library, an abiding neglect and intermittent funding had stifled the organization, no thanks to government red tape.

Even so, the idea from the inception was for CBAAC to be funded sustainably by countries on the African continent and in the African diaspora. Nigeria was only to provide the hub. That support was never forthcoming and maybe it ought to have been apparent from the very beginning since FESTAC itself was effectively a donation by an oil rich Nigerian state to the rest of the Black and African world. No outreach agent was appointed to canvass for the continued financial aid from the other nations, and Nigeria was too prosperous to bother with reaching out, until the country's economy took a turn downhill. Moreover, even at the best of times, culture and education did not receive the largest financial allocation from the annual national budget Consequently CBAAC would not pursue its book publications for years on end. Its audio­visual resources were also rendered inaccessible to the public glare.

Babawale is determined to appropriate every available opportunity afforded by a digital and electronic age to relaunch CBAAC and build on the seminars and conferences and other activities begun by his predecessors to effectively re-engage the public sphere.

He said, "There is the need for us to plant CBAAC again in the minds of the Nigerian people, many of whom do not really know what the Centre is all about. We have to lift culture beyond the level of antiquity, beyond the level of dance and beyond the level of music and project it in the totality of our lives as a people. Indigenous technology for example has to be lifted to the level of indigenous knowledge. And we have to begin to benefit from the local knowledge that will help us to move forward".

CBAAC's work as an institute is founded on two related aims. The first is to promote public interest in Black and African Arts and Civilization. The second is to foster an understanding and appreciation of black and African arts and culture. The tools for achieving which are also clearly marked and they include research and publications (and CBAAC still keeps an enviable backlist of journals and other publications produced under its own label), archival audio-visual and library materials, exhibitions and museum artifacts, information dissemination, seminars, public lectures, symposia and workshops.

Recently, the Centre revived its audio-visual library by adding a digital studio poised to attract the public interest and adapt invaluable materials of an audio-visual nature into digital formats.

Recently, the Centre revived its audio-visual library by adding a digital studio poised to attract the public interest and adapt invaluable materials of an audio-visual nature into digital formats. One of Professor Babawale's first tasks was to reorganise the Centre's information management division and ventilate its equipment storages retiring and renewing outdated hardware. Also, materials are converted into more trendy storage environments.

Babawale is inspired to do much more. He says to us,

"Culture is the foundation upon which any society exists. We are going to carry our cultural outreach to youths in all the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria . We want to affect our values by providing information on African indigenous values. We want our current quest for political stability and economic prosperity

to profit from the models of egalitarian societies in Igboland for example and in

other ethnic cultures".

Only in November 2006, CBAAC organized its first international conference under Professor Babawale's management in Trinidad and Tobago , in cooperation with the Pan-African Strategic and Policy Research Group (PANAFSTRAG). The venue, the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine was chosen for its vantage position as a base of interaction for scholars in the African diaspora.

By this, CBAAC sought to reestablish itself as a contact mechanism for African scholars working in the humanities and those in the context of the African diaspora. The five-day conference served as a forum for exchange of ideas as well as an essential networking avenue for scholars operating mainly on three continents. Thirty-two countries were represented and the conference theme was Advancing and Integrating Research and Studies in the Interest of Africa and the African Diaspora.

With speakers and scholars participating from Africa, North America, Europe and the West Indies itself, the assembly sought and laid the foundations for shared experiences and cooperation on many levels.

Reviewing the results of the conference and taking a prospective view of programmes ahead, especially the lectures and events geared towards a thirtieth anniversary of FESTAC from January 2007, CBAAC's director said, "We are warming up to a good start. We are interacting and we will continue to interact with our intellectual peers on a national and international scale.

"We must visit and revisit constantly those aspects of our culture that encourage a sense of community and values from our past that are desirable and edifying".